Pragmatic Naturalism

An Introduction

S. Morris Eames

Publication Year: 1977

It is said that America came of age in&shy;tellectually with the appearance of the pragmatic movement in philosophy. Pragmatic Naturalism presents a selec&shy;tive and interpretative overview of this philosophy as developed in the writings of its intellectual founders and chief exponents&#8212;Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey. Mr. Eames groups the leading ideas of these pragmatic natu&shy;ralists around the general fields of &#8220;Na&shy;ture and Human Life,&#8221; &#8220;Knowledge,&#8221; &#8220;Value,&#8221; and &#8220;Education,&#8221; treating the primary concerns and special emphasis of each philosopher to these issues.

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Philosophy students, teachers of phi&shy;losophy, and general readers will find this book a comprehensive overview of American philosophy.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Preface

This work is intended to be a guide to the leading ideas of a
movement in philosophy which has been called by the various
names of "pragmatism," "instrumentalism," "experimentalism,"
"empirical naturalism." For reasons ...

Introduction

It is often said that America came of age intellectually
with the appearance of the pragmatic movement in philosophy.
This philosophy originated in the late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century writings of Charles Sanders Peirce...

Part 1: Nature and Human Life

1. The Influence of Darwin

Charles Darwin's theory of the evolution of natural
species had a profound influence upon the pragmatic
naturalists. They are concerned with the implications of
evolutionary theory for a general view of nature and, of
human life, for a new theory of knowledge, and for ...

2. Accommodation, Adaptation, Adjustment

William James sees the problem of human life in a
world of changing forms and species to be one of "adjust or
die." For the pragmatic naturalists, adjustment is composed
of two processes, radically different in the attitudes and responses
they involve. On the one hand, there are many ...

3. Emergence and Non-reductionism

Darwinian revolution brought with it the concept of
emergence. New forms or species emerge out of old·ones.
What was Eohippus has become horse, and this species is
undergoing change and may pass away or become something
very different. Where nature is ongoing, that is, where new ...

4. The Fullness of Experience

Much of traditional philosophizing has a history of
postulating the separation of what is called "experience"
from what is called "nature"j experience is taken to be
something subjective, and nature is taken to be something ...

5. Immediacy, Transaction, and Continuity

For the pragmatic naturalists there are leading ideas or
categories which have important functions in the analysis,
description, and understanding of experience. 14 These
categories have been debated often, and what follows is an ...

6. A Pluralistic Universe

most prevailing philosophies on the continent of Europe
and in Great Britain was known as the philosophy of the
Absolute. There are various versions of this way of looking
at nature and life, and William James appears to have taken a
critical view of all of them. One version of the philosophic ...

7. Human Life in Nature

Pragmatic naturalists conceive of humans as a part of
nature. Although they share many organic processes with
other animals in their life in nature, humans emerge above
the animals in certain forms and functions. For instance,
humans can construct symbols and languages, they can ...

Part 2: Knowledge

8. The Importance of Method

Pragmatic naturalists use the term experience in the
fullest and most comprehensive sense. The word denotes
feelings, transactions, and continuities; it refers to physical
bodies and ideas and relations; it refers to sensations, concepts,
desires, and emotions; it refers to actualities ...

9. Signs, Symbols, and Meanings

Contemporary philosophy has shown a growing interest
in the philosophy of language, in the role of signs, meanings,
and symbols in human behavior. Much of the groundwork
in theory and in terminology for the study of language was

10. Antecedents and Consequences

In 1878 Charles Peirce published an article entitled
"How To Make Our Ideas Clear.//18 This essay has had a
profound influence on the entire development of pragmatic
naturalism. In the first part of this essay, Peirce criticizes
the method of Descartes for the attainment of clear ideas, a ...

11. Logical Theory

The history of modern logic shows the many contributions
of Peirce. Peirce was far ahead of others in his day, at
least in America, and it is only recently that he has become
recognized as an original thinker on this subject. When ...

12. Theory of Truth

.In their conceptions of nature and experience, pragmatic
naturalists hold that reality is changing and that knowledge
which is built upon this reality necessarily changes
with it. The absolutist view of nature as monistic, complete,
and closed was destroyed by the evolutionary idea, and the ...

Part 3: Value

13. General Theory of Value

Each of the founders of pragmatic naturalism made contributions
to what are generally called the value fields, to
ethics (moral philosophy), social philosophy, aesthetics, and
religion. One of Dewey's most significant contributions to ...

14. Moral Philosophy

William James came upon the philosophic scene during
a period when the arguments over determinism and freedom
seemed to have reached an impasse, and some philosophers
claimed that nothing more could be said upon the subject. ...

15. Social Philosophy

Social philosophy is a value study because various
forms and functions of societal life are prized or rejected,
defended or attacked. The history of human life consists of
numerous wars defending or attacking social and political ...

16. Philosophy of Art

Peirce says that he worked "with intensity for many
hours a day every day for long years" to train himself to the
study of feelings.47 On one level of experience Peirce holds
that feelings are primary, and he designates these as belonging,
in his terminology, to the category of Firstness. When ...

17. Religion and the Religious

The pragmatic naturalists inherited an intellectual
world in which traditional supernaturalism was one of the
oldest and most widely held interpretations of human experience.
Some thinkers like Thomas Paine had advocated a ...

Part 4: Education

18. Societies and Their Schools

Educational theories and practices have been of vital
interest to the pragmatic naturalists. Peirce made some observations
about education, but these are made primarily
from the point of view of an inquirer and not as one directly ...

19. Ideals and Goals of Education

Human beings are goal-seeking in many of their activitiesj
the ability to construct ends-in-view and to move toward
the accomplishment of some of these goals is a distinguishing
mark of the species. The pursuit and achievement
of goals gives meaning and purpose to living. Behavior that ...

20. The Educative Process

Theories of learning which Peirce and James initiated,
and which Mead and Dewey expanded, led to one of the
most comprehensive and influential philosophies of the
educative process in recent history. Human educational ...

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